


found a place to rest my head

by hit0miko



Category: Archie Comics, Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Angst, Betty-centric, F/M, Gen, bc i just feel so bad for her, lots of angst maybe, post 2x05, she's going thru a lot and deserves better
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-13
Updated: 2017-11-13
Packaged: 2019-02-01 18:01:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 855
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12710088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hit0miko/pseuds/hit0miko
Summary: she feels like she's about to drown. the ringtone haunts her and her whole world lay crumbled at her feet.orbetty is too busy saving everybody else, so who's going to save her?





	found a place to rest my head

**Author's Note:**

> post 2x05 and i'm sad and tired for betty. always the 'nice' girl, she feels like she has to save everybody, but all of that comes at a price and who's gonna be the one to save her???? it's just so sad omfg

Ever since she got that first call, Betty feels like her days melt together. They go by painfully slow and blurred and maybe that's because she hasn't been getting any sleep. Days and nights, she lay awake in her bed, feeling like the ground was going to come up and swallow her whole, but nothing happens and her anxiety bubbles up inside her, festering until it manifests and shows on her skin, on her palms.

She's been trying to avoid going to school as much as she can without her mother screaming in her ear that it will affect her future or something like that. It's hard. It's honestly so hard. There's no one she can talk to about what's been going on, so she shoulders this whole problem on her own, but she can't bear it. It's like she was condemned to hold up the whole damn sky but she was no Atlas. Atlas only held the weight of the sky, and what Betty was carrying was heavier than any burden, any sky, any earth. The weight she was bearing on her shoulders were people's lives, their futures. How much longer can she keep this up until she explodes?

The consequences of the calls she's received and the actions that followed lay in the rubble crumbled up around her feet. Her whole world manages to collapse all around her and she still finds the strength to protect every one, even if it cost her their love and trust and friendship. What was all of that compared to their lives? And she felt every little fissure, every crack and split in her world every time she cut someone off. Veronica was the start of everything. The stunt at Nick St. Claire's party started everything. It was the first crack. And Jughead's was the last. Of course the grand finale had to involve the love of her perfect, darling little life. And when she sent Archie to break things off between her and Jughead, the crack became worse, and worse, until she heard about what happened between him and Toni and the whole initiation into the Serpents and before she could even blink, her whole world collapsed in on her.

She wants so badly so just sit down and pick up the pieces and fix them, but she knows that if she even tries, the Black Hood is going to come for every one she loves, and she can't risk it. If she had to choose between herself and her loved ones, well, the obvious choice would be the latter, wouldn't it? Always the perfect, girl-next-door, Elizabeth Cooper, saving everybody but herself.

Her decision to put everyone above herself is not always smooth and soft. The pressure is so hard to take and it crushes her. Most of the times it brings out the darker side of her soul, and there's always so much screaming and crying until her throat is sore and her voice is hoarse. No matter how short she clips her nails, they always, always manage to break through the soft skin of her palms and she is left alone, drowning in her tears and anger and watching the blood pool in the crescent shaped cuts on her hands. 

And so now, she's laying in her bed, far too early to be going to sleep. Her eyes are swollen from crying until she had no more tears to cry, and her ears were ringing. She looks up at the ceiling, caressing the prominent crescent scars on her palms and wonders why this had to happen to her. Even with the Black Hood running around, her friends move on with their lives as if there isn't a murderer on the loose and she wants to know why she's the only one that has to suffer like this. Why is she the only one carrying the weight of everybody's lives on her shoulder? But then she thinks that it's the only way. The fact that people are moving on is a good sign that she's doing what she can to appease the Black Hood. As long as people as happy, even at the expense of her own happiness, then it's okay, right? 

So Betty stops thinking, wanting to feel selfish for once, and closes her eyes. She can hear a faint noise in the background. A song. But she shuts her eyes and drifts off somewhere. She doesn't really sleep, because she doesn't know what sleep is these days, but she finds that she can rest and drift off to some imaginary land where there are no murderers obsessed with her, and her and Veronica are getting matching manicures, and her and Jughead are holding hands and whispering secrets in each other's ears, and Archie walks her to school and talks about what he did the day before.

She wants to rest more. She just really needs some rest, her eyes feel so heavy. So, she just closes her eyes and tells herself that she'll handle everything when she wakes up.

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my tumblr is @hit0miko! catch me there and we can talk about Riverdale together! :-)


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